One Curriculum, Multiple Paths, and a Story That Never Locks the Door

SECTION 01

Represent a pathway as a projection, not a fork

Each study plan references module IDs, activities, stage exit criteria, and a pace; it does not copy lessons into a separate curriculum.

The five pathway definitions answer different scheduling questions over the same published graph. The recommended twelve-week plan spaces foundations, application, and cumulative retrieval. Six-week and three-week plans compress the cadence. The Virginia supplement isolates the six state-law lessons from the Series 65 score, while targeted remediation starts from a misconception rather than a calendar. Each stage names existing modules, a week range, focus, activities, and exit criteria.

Because a pathway stores references instead of content, revising a lesson improves every plan at once. The pathway planner can derive friendly module names from the current release and show an ordered timeline without creating a second source of legal explanations or question keys. Validation can also check every module reference before publication. A plan is therefore navigation metadata over authoritative lesson IDs, not a version of the curriculum that can drift.

SECTION 02

Separate a device's plan from shared evidence

The selected pathway is a local preview preference, while lesson progress and story advancement are database-backed shared state.

Choosing a pathway updates the planner immediately and stores its ID in local storage. If storage is unavailable, the selection still works for the visit. This is intentional: a pace preference can differ between a laptop and tablet and has no evidentiary meaning. The planner does not mark lessons complete, create sessions, or change what another LAN device recommends.

Lesson completion lives in PostgreSQL under the shared learner. Story mode reads that same progress map, so completing a standard lesson updates the corresponding story mission and vice versa. The architecture avoids two progress systems and makes replay safe: a completed mission remains available, while its status and XP are derived from durable lesson state. Shared evidence and local presentation preference can evolve independently because their ownership is explicit.

SECTION 03

Map narrative one-to-one onto the curriculum

Every module receives a fictional chapter and every lesson receives a mission briefing, objective, sequence number, and engagement reward.

Story mode follows a fictional independent Virginia advisory practice through five acts, ten chapters, and thirty missions. The story layer adds scene, stakes, badge, briefing, and objective but retrieves the actual lesson sections and authority records from the published curriculum. A map builder sorts modules and lessons, requires every mapping, derives completed/current/available states, and selects the first incomplete mission as the recommendation.

Available means navigable, not unlocked. A learner can study the last Virginia mission before completing the first economic mission, return to standard curriculum at any time, or replay a completed scene. This avoids using narrative progress as an access-control system. The map recommends order while respecting an independent learner's need to review a current work problem, remediate a weakness, or move between Series 65 and Virginia material.

SECTION 04

Keep narrative rewards in the learning domain

XP, ranks, badges, and achievements summarize engagement and sequence; none represents registration, competence, or an exam forecast.

A mission's XP equals its bounded lesson percentage, so the campaign can total at most 3,000. Rank thresholds and six achievements turn that evidence into wayfinding: they highlight the next unfinished mission, completed chapters, and broad coverage. They do not use practice scores, and they do not hide the underlying percentage. This makes the reward system explainable and reversible instead of an opaque behavioral score.

Every story surface carries the boundary in copy. Northstar Advisory is fictional; mission completion is learner self-attestation; badges are narrative markers; and learning XP does not indicate passage, registration, licensure, or authority to advise clients. The content remains source backed because the fiction frames application while the lesson's authority panel supplies the actual citation and dates.

• Rank derives only from lesson engagement percentage.
• Achievements summarize completed learning milestones.
• Study-ahead and replay remain available regardless of rank.
• No story reward grants or implies a professional status.